{"id":570255,"date":"2026-08-15T23:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/570255\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T23:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:38:13","slug":"shades-of-grey-parents-watching-locally-made-sex-in-the-21st-century-doco-likely-to-be-alarmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/570255\/","title":{"rendered":"Shades of grey? Parents watching locally made sex in the 21st century doco likely to be alarmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RussellRussell Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

Columnist & features writer\u00b7New Zealand Listener\u00b7<\/p>\n

15 Aug, 2026 07:05 PM3 mins to read<\/p>\n

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Crisp and authentic: Sex and relationship expert Jo Robertson. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u2018This is a uniquely confusing time,\u201d says Jo Robertson towards the end of What Happened to Sex? She\u2019s not wrong.<\/p>\n

\n What to make of a culture around sexual activity \u2013 influenced by online pornography, social media, pop music imagery and even an ascendant genre of romantic fiction \u2013 that is
\n establishing norms that even many of those involved in it don\u2019t seem comfortable with? Parents watching What Happened to Sex? will likely be alarmed by it. Younger people may just be grateful someone\u2019s talking about it.\n <\/p>\n

Robertson, who presents this instalment of the Documentary NZ season, is a genuine expert in the area. Her masters dissertation focused on the impact on adolescents of online sexual content and she works as a sex and relationship therapist. She\u2019s also a crisp and authentic television presenter.<\/p>\n

The documentary is creditably willing to let young women and men do a lot of the talking. And it soon becomes clear that consent \u2013 the bedrock of healthy sexual relationships \u2013 isn\u2019t always the issue here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hooked up with someone, and she asked me to hit her, and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, what was that?\u2019 And she goes, \u2018No, no, I want you to full-on backhand me,\u2019\u201d says 30 year-old James in the opening minute. \u201cI felt terrible at the time. And I was like, I don\u2019t want to hurt you. She goes, \u2018No, I want to be hurt. Hit me.\u2019 And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started having sex,\u201d a young woman continues. \u201cI found myself saying to him, \u201cYou can be rougher with me. You can choke me. It\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem may not be rough sex itself \u2013 although Robertson\u2019s visit to Dr Kate Taylor, whose on-screen job description is lead clinician non-fatal strangulation, produces the chilling information that even a handful of choking experiences can cause long-term brain damage. It\u2019s part of a \u201csexual script\u201d absorbed by kids before they\u2019ve had their first kiss.<\/p>\n

The expectation that sex will involve transgressive practices \u2013 \u201cOtherwise you\u2019re boring and who\u2019s gonna want to have sex with you?\u201d \u2013 is such that 27-year-old Izzy says she has begun to opt out of sex altogether.<\/p>\n

It is worth recalling that societal views of sexual practices have often changed over time, and that what people want to fantasise about is not always what they do \u2013 Fifty Shades of Grey became a global mainstream success with readers who weren\u2019t necessarily practising BDSM themselves \u2013 and Robertson does a good job of not tilting over into moral panic.<\/p>\n

It would also be foolish to pretend that decades past, when sexual consent was barely discussed (rape within marriage was not a criminal offence in New Zealand until 1985) were good times.<\/p>\n

But What Happened to Sex? paints a worrying picture of a media-driven environment that can generate both emotional and physical harm, one that lacks a good social narrative for preventing that harm. Robertson concludes by worrying that the ultimate effect will be generational.<\/p>\n

What to do about it? Robertson briefly references Australia\u2019s ban on social media for teenagers without really exploring what a complex argument that is. But just talking about it all in a programme like this seems a good start.<\/p>\n

What Happened to Sex? TVNZ 1, Monday, August 24, 8.30pm; streaming on TVNZ+. <\/p>\n

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Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Brown Columnist & features writer\u00b7New Zealand Listener\u00b7 15 Aug, 2026 07:05 PM3 mins to read \u200c Subscribe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[164052,118967,5195,15364,15414,28353,156,52088,22263,78,120,35145,1362,111,139,69,1118,3766,8986,312,7680,281183,6180,223,1961,2044,61,21419,215807,65508,6923,25152],"class_list":["post-570255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-21st","tag-alarmed","tag-be","tag-century","tag-confusing","tag-doco","tag-entertainment","tag-grey","tag-happened","tag-in","tag-likely","tag-locally","tag-made","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-parents","tag-robertson","tag-says","tag-sex","tag-shades","tag-shes","tag-the","tag-this","tag-time","tag-to","tag-towards","tag-uniquely","tag-watching","tag-what","tag-wrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}